Getting to the heart of who we are

Design: Jacquie’s Handmade Off-Grid House

May 27, 2016

Over the course of my life I’ve envied several friends for their incredible sense of design. One of them is Jacquie, who lives in California’s Sierra foothills, overlooking the south fork of the Yuba River.

Jacquie lives in a two-storey handmade house that she and her ex- built together decades ago. Constructed of wood and plaster, with a greenhouse at one end and a tin roof, it’s powered by solar panels. She burns oak and manzanita for heat in a vintage stove and gets her water from a spring, gravity-fed into the kitchen sink.

A table for dining, sewing, writing poems, teaching grandchildren to draw — you name it

Everywhere you look there’s a nook or cranny, a vignette, some artistic juxtaposition of… …unlikely objects to catch your eye. The house is an eclectic blend of practical and decorative, repeated in so many ways and forms that visitors can’t help but surrender to Jacquie’s aesthetic.

Jacquie’s collection of tiny Buddha statues alternating with bullets on a windowsill

Prayer shawl and Mexican tin heart mirror in the guest room, whose wall is made of wood rounds from trees on the property set in cement

Would you have thought to make a curtain from baby clothes and lace chemises? No, me neither. But it’s perfect.

The house perches above the river canyon, off a dirt road. Jacquie’s had visits from local wildlife including a curious mountain lion who looked into her windows during the day and several bears, who break in through the French doors every couple of years and ransack the kitchen, devouring anything sweet: jam, chocolate, cake mix, and honey.

Look at those huge feet!

I think we get used to the cuteness of these big animals, seeing photographs and videos, but they’re actually pretty terrifying when they walk into your house

Open shelves display glassware and crockery, including a collection of plates with hearts on them by Ursula Freymouth

Inventive window repair, and the artists said it spells “love.” Can you find it?

Though she was mostly raised in Los Angeles, Jacquie’s heritage is French and Vietnamese. You can still hear the trace of a rural French childhood in her voice — it also explains her reverence for butter. She left L.A. to live a life in the pines and cedars nearly 50 years ago, and hasn’t looked back.

“Que bonita es la vida cuando nos da de sus riquezas/How sweet life is when it gives us its riches” Frida Kahlo

Jacquie’s a painter and long-time writer of illustrated journals. Many of the objects in her house were found as she traveled, and a story accompanies each one. She doesn’t display her own work at home, but did paint a door in her kitchen.

The pantry door, next to a turned post from New Mexico

I don’t want to live in Jacquie’s house. I’m pretty fond of my own house. And I don’t want to be anyone but myself. But I wish I could sit for a few hours inside Jacquie’s brain and see the world the way she sees it. How does she put these combinations together that would never occur to most of us? Until someone invents mind-borrowing technology, I’m going to have to make do with admiring the fruits of her imagination.

Joyful and beautiful! Wonderfully rich! I love Urusela and her clay pieces. I am so sad she is not still “playing with clay.” I am fortunate to have a few paintings of Jacquie’s. I miss just being around the creativity and gifts of the artists living in their unusual and wonderful ways in Nevada County.